The Dark Knight Returns

That Bruce Wayne was going to come back was absolutely assured even at the very moment he "died". It's all good. Grant Morrison has him coming back to franchise the Batman "brand" by training Caped Crusaders around the world in the aptly-titled Batman, Inc. book. I'm intrigued by that...we'll see how it turns out.

Hopefully Bruce will be returning with that stick up his butt finally removed...the post-Dark Knight Returns pompous, arrogant, condescending, inflexible, always "too cool for...and the smartest guy in... the room" Batman had gotten extremely tedious. (I don't mind the guy being driven and intense but dude get over yourself every once in a while.)

Dick Grayson is apparently going to continue as one of the Batmen...and that's cool too. I really like Dick as Batman...more than I expected to. I've even grown to like Damian Wayne, snot-nosed punk that he can be, as Robin (he is, despite all of his bitching and moaning, working hard to be a good soldier and partner...he may complain but more often than not he does what Batman tells him and he comes through when the chips are down.)

Dick shows that Batman can be good at his job and still be a person at the same time. Bruce Wayne will probably never be that kind of Batman again (he used to be before writers took Frank Miller's angry old Batman from the future and superimposed his worst traits onto his younger self)...but hopefully at least a little of it will creep back into him...hey, couldn't hurt :-)

Young Justice

Preview of the upcoming Young Justice cartoon series. Looks like it could be fun.

Beware His Power...

Entertainment Weekly, showcasing the Hollywood elements of next week's San Diego Comic-Con (nope, not going...already sold out...too many people (with no parking and overpriced concessions)...too much Hollywood hype and hoopla...many less annoying things to do here in our fair city) with Ryan Reynolds all ringed up and ready to use his might as Green Lantern in the upcoming movie.

First impression is that it's okay (the mask is kinda funky but it's hard to make a mask like that work on real people however cool they might look in the comics)...I'll have to see it more fully...and in action...before I give my full fanboy pontification on it :-)

Wonder Woman

DC Comics' amazing Amazon, Wonder Woman, gets a new modern look...well, if by "modern" you mean the Eighties (tights and a jacket with rolled-up sleeves? Really?) But hey at least Diana isn't fighting monsters and criminals in a bathing suit anymore...

Wednesday Comics

This is one huge honkin’ comic book. And it’s one really beautiful comic book too.

Wednesday Comics was an experiment by DC Comics featuring tabloid sized comic pages featuring some acclaimed writers and artists presenting stories of DC characters…iconic and not-so-iconic…one page at a time published weekly (on newsprint no less.)

It seems unlikely to be repeated…16 tabloid pages for 4 bucks is probably too high a hurdle for a lot of comic fans to get over…but it was a grand little adventure just the same.

This big (17+” x 11+”) hardcover collects all of the stories on better paper and it’s a gorgeous comic book. All of DC’s big guns…Superman (with beautiful art by Lee Bermejo), Batman (a fine noir romance that might have needed a bit more room to breathe) and , Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash…are represented alongside of lesser-known (to the general public at least) classic characters like Hawkman, Sgt. Rock, the Metal Men, Deadman, Adam Strange, Metamorpho the Element Man, and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.

The art is almost all wonderful and some of the stories are better than other. I was charmed by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s whimsical Supergirl story featuring Krypto the Super Dog and Streaky the Super Cat (just go with it…:-), intrigued by Paul Pope’s pulp fiction re-imagining of the sci-fi hero Adam Strange, and engaged by the gritty WW2 Sgt. Rock story written by Adam Kubert and drawn by his legendary father Joe Kubert.

The rollicking Metamorpho adventure…by Neil Gaiman and Michael Allred…is also a great deal of fun as is the unlikely team-up of Catwoman and Etrigan the Demon by Walt Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze and Kyle Baker’s action-packed Hawkman story.

This book is pricey…it lists for $49.99…but it delivers in a big way. Wednesday Comics makes me happy and what more could you ask from a comic book than that?

Long Live the Legion?

I love the Legion of Super-Heroes. It’s a childish thing, I know…but the Legion is part of my childhood...one of my first great comic book reading loves when the 9 year old me started immersing himself in the fantastic, improbable, thrilling four-color adventures.

Loving the Legion…something that has continued from childhood into my continuing dotage…I am pleased that the ongoing cycle of their popularity has swung back to the popular side starting with Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s reboot through the use of the team as important players in Justice League of America, Final Crisis, and the Superman books and on to the newest incarnation of their self-titled series (written by Legion legend Paul Levitz no less) along with a companion series in the pages of a revived Adventure Comics.

I’m enjoying it all. And, at the same time, feeling vaguely put off by it at the same time.

Partially it’s because the characters act and behave like adults (some of them are married and have children of their own) and yet the writers, for nostalgia’s sake I suppose, continue to have them refer to each other as though they were still children (above, for example, are Saturn “Girl”, a mother of twins, her husband Lightning “Lad”, and his twin sister Lightning “Lass”.) I have as much affection for the (sometimes silly) codenames the Legionnaires had the beginning but if you’re going to make them adults (which is fine with me, by the way) then you shouldn’t be trying to have it both ways by continuing to have them use names they had when they were teenagers.

But, much more importantly, there’s a very cynical edge to the Legion mythos that feels incongruous and self-indulgent. Waid’s reboot, for example, used a heated generation gap theme as its foundation while the later stories continue to focus on virulent xenophobia as the toxic element in the interplay between the Legion (who have always been an assemblage of beings from myriad worlds come together to protect the greater good) and the government (and apparently many people) of Earth.

The cynicism I spoke of earlier rears its head in the notion that we won’t have overcome petty prejudices like ageism and xenophobia after another 1,000 years have passed. It might make for good drama but it’s a sad (and lazy) commentary on the ability of beings to get past such 20^th/21^st century notions like those.

I understand that conflict is essential when telling stories but the Legion used to showcase how people from different worlds (and even different times) could come together…stand together…triumph together…over threats to the greater good. Legionnaires weren’t distrusted because they were young…or because they weren’t born on Earth…they were, instead, celebrated for what they were heroes who were will to put their lives on the line to make the universe a safer, more united place.

(Previous versions of the series had a decidedly dark edge…Keith Giffen’s "5 years later" reboot and Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning’s “Legion of the Damned/Legion Lost” run…and I quite enjoyed those but they were fighting against ominous forces coming from without and not from small-minded “Earth first” bigots who hate them no matter how many times they save the universe.)

Maybe that notion is not cool enough for modern comic book writers…if that’s the case it’s certainly a sad thing…for comics…for the Legion…for whatever young people who might find their way to comics (I doubt this overriding sense of mistrust and even outright distain for the titular heroes of the book would have engaged the younger me the way the “tales of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes” used to back in the day.)

Maybe I’m just getting too old for these things.

One Dark (Christmas Eve) Night, Part 2

As the snow continued to fall, the Batmobile prowled the streets looking for trouble to right. "This snow's gonna send everybody running home tonight to wait for Santa," Robin said tugging his hat down to the top edge of his mask. "Don't think there's gonna be much for us to do tonight, big guy."

Batman stared resolutely forward. "Maybe not. We'll see..."

They cruised past the uptown shopping district. All of the shops there were already closed for the holiday. Bored, Robin was glancing absently about when a movement caught his eyes. "Circle the block, Batman," he said pressing his nose to the window to look back.

"What's up?" Batman asked as he turned at the corner.

"Don't know, " Robin replied. "Probably nothing...but I thought I saw somebody sneaking around that gift store back there."

Batman dimmed the lights as the Batmobile came back around the corner. They pulled up to the store, both of them half-expecting to find a burglar trying to break into the store. What they found instead was a little girl sitting in the doorway shivering and crying.

Robin jumped out of the car first knowing that Batman's appearance would no doubt frighten the girl. "Hey, little miss," he said with a bright smile, "what are you doing out here at this time of night?"

The little girl looked up. "I know you," she said wiping her nose and standing up, "you're Robin! I saw you on TV!"

"That's me, sweetie!" Robin replied taking a short playful bow. "What's your name?"

The little girl looked over at Batman who had gotten out of the Batmobile and was watching from the other side of the car, then she looked back at Robin who had knelt down to her level. "Sara, " she said shyly. "My name is Sara."

Robin pulled off his Santa hat and placed it on her head. "What are you doing out here alone, Sara?"

The little girl looked down kicking a bit of the gathering snow around with the toe of her boot. "It's almost Christmas," she said sadly, a hot tear forming in her eye, "an' I been so busy playin' an' stuff that I...I forgot to get Mommy a present..."

"So you came out here to get her one?"

Sara nodded. "I sneaked out and came down here with my own money," she rattled her pocket full of change, "to get her one. But everything's closed...an' it's cold...an' I'm lost...I don't know how to get home..."

Sara leaned forward into Robin's arms and he picked her up. "Don't worry, sweetheart, we'll get you home." Robin carried her into the Batmobile. settling her on his lap in the passenger seat. Batman climbed back into the car and reached for the radio microphone.

Sara glanced doe-eyed over at Batman. "I'm sorry to be botherin' you, Mr. Batman," she said in a tiny voice.

Batman looked thoughtfully at her face for a moment. "It's okay, little one," he said looking up to meet Robin's gaze," this is why Robin and I are out here...to help people..."

Robin pulled another candy cane from his vest pocket and gave it to Sara while Batman called police headquarters to see if anyone had called in a missing persons report on Sara. And indeed someone had he was told.

"She lives a few blocks to the west," Batman said as he returned the microphone to its cradle. He turned the engine over and pulled out onto the now snow-covered street.

Soon, the Batmobile pulled up to a small house a few blocks away. There was a Gotham City Police car parked in front of the house.

"That's it, Mr. Batman!" Sara said excitedly. "That's my house right there!"

"I know, honey," he said pulling in to park in front of the house.

Robin carried Sara, who was still wearing his Santa hat, up the walkway; Batman hung back a few steps. The front door opened and a policeman stepped out. "...yes, ma'am, we'll let you know as soon as we..." he stopped in mid-statement as he noticed the newcomers.

"What the...?!?"

Another cop and a teary-eyed woman in a bathrobe came through the door.

"Mommy!" Sara cried as Robin handed her into her mother's outstretched arms.

"Sara! Oh baby, where have you been!?!" her mother cried as she hugged her daughter tightly to he chest. "I was so worried! Oh God!"

The first cop nodded to his partner. "Go call it in, Mitch," he said with a broad grin. "Another gold star for the Caped Crusaders! Good work, guys!"

"Just luck, officer," Batman said quietly. "We just happened to be in the right place at the right time."

The policeman looked over at the mother and child hugging and crying in the doorway. "Whatever works, Batman."

"I guess..." Batman replied wistfully. "C'mon, Robin, let's go."

Sara noticed the two of them leaving and leapt down from her mother's arms. "Robin, wait!" She ran up to him holding out the hat.

"You forgot your hat."

He took it and promptly put it back on top of her head. "You keep it, gorgeous, I think it looks even better on you than it did on me! Don't you agree, Batman?"

"Without a doubt."

"Thank you for bringing me home," Sara said. "I'm sorry I caused everybody so much trouble. I just wanted to get a present for my Mommy..."

Batman glanced over at the woman standing in the doorway with the policeman. "I think you just did, sweetheart. Merry Christmas."

Batman slid back into the car. Robin bent down and gave Sara a final hug. "Be good, kiddo," he said with a jaunty grin.

"Merry Christmas, Robin!"

The Batmobile pulled away from the house and back into the night. "Snow's really coming down now," Batman said. "Guess we might as well call it a night. The Commissioner can give a call if we're needed..."

"Yeah," Robin agreed as he stifled a yawn. "And besides, I'm all out of candy canes."

Batman allowed himself a fleeting smile. "At least you got rid of that silly hat."

"I knew you'd say something like that." An impish grin blossomed on the boy's face as he reached under his seat and pulled out another red-and-white Santa hat, this one with a tinkling little silver bell on its tip. "Boy scouts and Boy Wonders are always prepared! Now home, Jeeves, I think I hear them sleigh bells a-ringin' in the distance!"

"You're incorrigible," Batman said as he turned towards the highway that would take them back to the suburban mansion they called home.

Robin nestled back in his seat and closed his eyes. "If you think that now," he said ominously, "wait 'til you see what I got y ou for Christmas..."

"I shudder to think."

Robin shrugged again and pulled his cape around him for the ride home. He smiled and began to hum, "...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...Batman!"

Batman sighed and gunned the Batmobile through the gathering snow towards home.

Batman and Robin are © 2006 and ™ DC Comics

One Dark (Christmas Eve) Night, Part 1

The cave was, of course, cool and dark and still...only the soft hum, and attendant glow, of a bank of sophisticated computer and video monitors disturbing that eerie stillness until the doors of an elevator hummed quickly open. The man in black strode out of the elevator and walked purposefully towards his forbidding black sedan. The sun was hours gone and it was time to go back to work.

Bruce paused to look at his reflection in a full-length mirror hanging near a soft spotlight. There was, he realized once again, something both eminently forbidding and sublimely ridiculous about the costume....the skintight body suit, the flowing black cloak with its jagged edge, the sinister black cowl...but the whole ensemble played nicely into his theory of the inherent cowardice and superstition running rampant in the diseased criminal mind. He realized, once again, that wearing the costume...indeed that going out into the night risking his life in the name of "justice"...was not a completely rational thing to do.

He knew that. But he didn't care as long as he continued to show results in his drive to be the right hand of righteous justice.

Bruce's reverie was shattered by the noisy entrance of his ebullient young friend and partner. The boy's bright red, green, yellow, and black costume was topped off this night with a fuzzy red-and-white hat that sat jauntily atop his head haloing his bright smile.

"Tim," Bruce said patiently, "why are you wearing that hat?"

The boy paused at the mirror to fuss with his headgear. "It's Christmas Eve, Bruce," he replied brightly, "I though I'd spread a little holiday cheer among the thugs and other assorted riff-raff we might run into tonight!"

Bruce repressed a smile and said sternly, "We're about serious business tonight as always, Robin, I'd really prefer it if you..."

The boy ran, jumped, and turned a perfect forward somersault landing precisely where he wanted to...next to the passenger door of the great black car. "Don't be such a grinch, Batman," he said unperturbed by his partner's characteristic gruffness. "C'mon, let's roll!"

Batman fought back yet another smile and walked slowly to the driver's side of the car. He sometimes wondered why he took the boy...as capable and valuable as Timothy was...out with him on his nocturnal forays against Gotham's lowlifes. The truth was that the boy's light...his irrepressible joy for life and living...balanced his more dour outlook on things and kept him in touch with the basic goodness of most people (this being something he tended to doubt in a world like his that was populated with murderers and rapists and thieves and psychotics.) Robin, he realized, kept him from letting his formidable dark side run rampant...kept him from becoming in effect that which he himself hated most.

As Batman slid into the car, Robin began humming the theme from the TV show that had so irked him years ago. "Doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...doo...Batman!" the boy sang mischievously.

Batman pointedly ignored him and engaged the Batmobile's mighty engine. Robin, still humming the song, reached into his bright red vest's inner pocket and pulled out a candy cane. He unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth as he settled back for the ride into town to begin.

Batman glanced over at the boy who was contentedly sucking on the red-and-white stick of candy and, not completely able to curtail a slight grin, said, "Do you have to...?"

"Do I have to what?" Robin replied disingenuously loudly slurping the candy cane in the process.

Batman shook his head and gunned the engine. The concealing doors at the far end of the Batcave raised silently and quickly and the Batmobile roared out into the Christmas Eve night heading towards the sparkling lights of Gotham City in the distance.

There was a light dusting of snow on the road leading into the city. "Looks like we're gonna have a white Christmas after all." Robin commented not expecting a reply from his friend.

The city itself was alive with bundled up citizens out and about doing their last minute shopping. Batman knew that the number of honest people out there spending money and carrying tempting packages would bring the vultures out even on a brisk Christmas Eve night. Of this he was sure.

Almost as if on cue, his thoughts were interrupted by a scream from behind them. "Stop! Thief! Stop!"

Robin spit his candy into the litterbag at his feet, his face now focused and wary. Batman wheeled the Batmobile around and roared back to where the cry had come from.

In front of a department store, a flustered woman was being helped to her feet by some passers-by as the costumed duo leapt out of their jet-black car. Batman noticed two new paths in the snow leading from where the woman had fallen down the street and around the corner into a darkened alley. A Salvation Army collection kettle stood untended just outside the doorway of the store.

The crowd of onlookers gave way for the tall man in black...a feeling of awe, coloured with more than a little apprehension, sweeping over them.

"Batman!" the woman cried. "He stole my purse! He ran into the alley!" she said pointing down the street.

Batman nodded and sprinted away, his great black cloak fanning out behind him. Robin paused long enough to say, "It's okay, ma'am, we'll get him!" He winked at her and she smiled; then he ran after Batman into the alley.

Robin, true to his rigorous training, stole cautiously into the alley, his every sense on full alert. He crouched low as he heard a voice from deep in the dark alley.

"Wh-who are you, man?" he heard a nervous voice cry out.

Robin rolled his eyes and muttered, "Jeez, everybody's a straight man..." But then he noticed Batman, standing silent and still, almost invisible in the shadows, against the far wall of the alley listening intently. to the proceedings further down the way.

Then who...? His thought was interrupted as two figures suddenly walked out of the alley. One was a boy about 16; the other was a ruddy-faced man in a Salvation Army uniform, holding a large black pocketbook in his left hand. His right arm is across the boy's slumped shoulders. Both of them drew back wide-eyed as Batman and Robin stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the alley.

The boy's eyes stayed wide with fright but the older man quickly regained his composure. "Evening, Batman," he said pleasantly. "Everything's okay here...young Robert here is quite remorseful about his actions..."

Batman said nothing. He nodded and let them pass. Down the street back in front of the store, the crowd had grown and the woman who had been mugged was standing at the front of it apprehensively.

As Batman and Robin watched from a few yards behind, the old man handed the pocketbook to Robert, who in turn walked over to the woman.

"I'm sorry, ma'am...I..."

She took the purse warily and glanced through it. "It's all here I think," she said looking up at Batman who'd come closer.

Robert, tears streaming down his eyes, looked into her eyes. "P-please, lady...y-you're not goin' to send me to jail, are you? Please...my Ma she'd..."

"I don't think he's a bad child," the old man said to Batman, "just a little misguided..."

Batman frowned coldly. "Aren't they all?"

"Lighten up, Batman," Robin said in a stage-whisper, "it's not like this kid is the Joker or anybody like that..."

All eyes turned to the grim Dark Knight. Batman turned to the woman. "No real harm done," she said somewhat daunted by his dour demeanor. "And it is Christmas after all..."

Batman nodded and turned his withering gaze on the boy. "Go," he said tersely.

The boy nodded to Batman and then to the woman and then he started walking quickly down the street. The crowd dispersed and the old man plucked his bell out of the kettle and began ringing it once more. "Merry Christmas, Batman," he said as the Caped Crusader walked slowly towards the Batmobile. "And to you too, son," he said with a smile towards Robin.

Batman nodded almost imperceptibly and disappeared into the car; Robin paused and reached into a compartment on his utility belt. He brought out a $20 bill and dropped into the old man's kettle.

Batman honked the Batmobile's horn impatiently. Robin smiled and said, "Keep the faith, old-timer!", as he sprinted for the car.

"Always, son," the old man said. "Always."

The Batmobile revved up and sped away into the night. Batman circled the block and came back around until he found Robert walking swiftly along a quiet sidewalk. He pulled up next to him and rolled down the window. Robert stopped, his eyes once more filled with apprehension and fear.

"This is your only pass, boy," Batman said evenly. "Next time you do something like that I'll be worst that your worst nightmare. Do you understand me?"

Robert nodded. "Y-yes, sir..."

Robin reached into his vest pocket and pulled out another candy cane. 'Yo, Robert!" he called out. "Catch!" He tossed the stick of candy past Batman out the window and into Robert's startled hands. "In the meantime," he said as he unwrapped another candy cane for himself, "have a good Christmas, dude!"

"Th-thanks!" Robert replied with a nervous but grateful smile.

Batman rolled up the window and drove away.

"You had to get the last word in with that kid, didn't you?" Robin said glancing out the window as the snow began to fall once again.

"I didn't get the last word in this time, did I?"

Robin shrugged. "Why give the kid bad dreams on Christmas Eve?"

The Captain and the Kid

Okay, I am here to confess that when I was a boy I played with dolls. Well actually I only played with one doll (I’d like to call it an “action figure” but that term hadn’t yet come into vogue back in long ago youth) and that doll was, of course, Captain Action.

G.I. Joe never interested me but I loved the idea of Captain Action the first time I saw a commercial on one long lost Saturday morning. The good Captain was not only a hero in his own right but he could become other heroes…Superman, Batman, the Lone Ranger, Aquaman, Captain America, Flash Gordon…simply by switching into different costumes and masks (all sold separately, of course.)

I can only remember two times in my childhood where I actively hounded my poor mother for a specific Christmas gift (I would hint strongly at other times…) once was in my teen years when I just had to have the four-LP set of Chicago at Carnegie Hall (Chicago was a relatively cool band before they let Peter Cetera turn them into the schmaltz factory they were during the 80’s) and the other time was when I was 10 and I just had to have Captain Action.

Mom came through.

I got the main Captain doll…sweet!...and the Superman and Aquaman accessory costumes and I was one happy camper. Never got Action Boy…he seemed a bit lame to me for some reason…but I loved the Captain.

I even bought the 5-issue Captain Action comic book series that DC put out (great Gil Kane and Wally Wood art with stories by Jim Shooter…I still have them, yellowed and dog-eared, in a box somewhere in the garage) though the adventures I came up with on my own seemed a hundred times more interesting.

I’m not sure why I thought of Captain Action today but the memory still warms the imaginative little boy who still dwells somewhere deep inside the cynically optimistic soul of the old man I am today :-)

Until death...or continuity reboot...do them part...

Rumor has it that the marriage between Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker is about to come to an end (someway, somehow, it’s comic books they can do whatever they want to get to where they want to be.) If true, I think it’s too bad.

Spider-Man has never been my favorite character…I like him well enough but I don’t follow his solo titles on a regular basis (in fact, I rather prefer him in guest-star, team-up, and team member roles…I think him being an Avenger is extremely cool)…but I was pleased when he and Mary Jane got hitched (yep, ol’ Pete really hit the jackpot there :-) and I think the marriage…through all of its ups and downs…has made the character stronger and more interesting.

It’s been argued by some…including Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada…that the essence of Spider-Man is that he’s a sadsack loser despite the fact he has cool super-powers and a classic costume…that having a happy marriage to a gorgeous redhead (who is an actress and model to boot) is not what his life was supposed to be. I think that’s silly. The idea that the character should be in the same emotional place now that he was in 40+ years ago when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him seems absurd to me.

But then I’ve grown up with super-hero comics…I was 9 years old when I got into them seriously…and now that I’m into my 5^th decade I have no problem with characters growing up, growing older, getting married, having kids, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But as someone (I believe it’s attributed to Jim Shooter) once said, super-hero comics from the big 2 are not about change but rather the illusion of change so that they’re always welcoming to new readers (every comic could be somebody’s first comic after all.) I guess that would still make sense if there were hordes of kids taking up the hobby but that just isn’t the case. The audience, for better or worse, is largely adult and (hopefully) able to cope with the fact that characters age and grow…albeit VERY slowly.

Most super-hero marriages come a cropper sooner or later: Aquaman and Mera, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the Sub-Mariner and Dorma, the Sub-Mariner and Marrina, the Atom and Jean Loring, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Donna Troy and Terry Long, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl (pre-Crisis), the Human Torch and Lyja, and on and on. Through death, continuity reboots, or just plain “irreconcilable differences”, the dissolution rate among super-hero couples is much higher than it is out here in the real world.

Ralph and Sue Dibny, maybe my favorite super-hero couple ever, were ripped asunder in as ugly a way as possible (with having it revealed that Sue was raped by a super-villain in the past and then killed and incinerated by an insane Jean Loring and later Ralph sacrificing himself to contain a demon) and then reunited in the afterlife as ghosts (again, it’s super-hero comics so I guess that qualifies as a happy ending.)

Granted some marriages do endure…that of the Fantastic Four’s Reed and Sue being one that has survived through good times and bad (and hey, their kids are still alive…super-hero offspring don’t usually fare any better than super-hero marriages) with Clark Kent and Lois Lane as another couple that make each other stronger…but they are few and far between.

The Black Panther and Storm were recently married and they seem happy together (at least until some writer comes along and decides that Storm should be back with the X-Men full time) and the union of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones (hey give that kid a name already!) has been interesting and fun so far. Green Arrow and Black Canary are supposedly about to get married but, if it happens, that doesn’t seem like a match that will stand the test of time…though I’m willing to be proved wrong.

Maybe there’s a shift in the way comic book creators think of married super-heroes. But I rather doubt it.

And Pete? MJ? Hey, it’s been real, kids…good luck getting back into the dating pool.

Get Us Out from Under, Wonder Woman....

Hell's "Angel": Batman #666

Given constant reboots…nothing sells like a #1 after all…it’s quite unlikely that very many titles will ever make it into the 600’s, much less actually reach the so-called “number of the beast”, 666.

That said, some of DC’s most venerable titles have managed, through thick and thin, to hang on to their issue numbering and to actually reach that “dreaded” issue number (both Action Comics and Detective Comics passed that number long ago.) Superman #666 deals with the milestone by literally going to hell while Batman #666, already published, took a slightly more symbolic route.

In a dystopian future, Gotham City is protected by a new, more brutal Batman: Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, who has taken up the mantle after the death of his father. The world is turmoil…global warming has the city baking in 120+ degree heat, millions are dead in an epidemic in China, Mecca has been irradiated by a dirty bomb, and criminals are meeting grisly ends at the hands of a false Batman who thinks that he’s the Anti-Christ.

Batman, who is at odds with the Gotham Police Department and Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon (who bears considers Damian a “monster” who is somehow responsible for the death of a “good friend” of hers), lives a solitary, almost ascetic, life with only a cat…archly named “Alfred”…as companion.

Grant Morrison’s story is taut and fast-paced even as tantalizing threads are left dangling (perhaps to be picked up at some point in the future) and Andy Kubert’s art is kinetic and engrossing (the redesign of the Batman uniform with an overcoat…rather than a flowing cloak…as its focal point is an inspired idea that works very nicely.)

Batman #666 is…if you’ll pardon the expression…one hell of a comic book.

Go West, Young Comic Book Fan...

Like a lot of Americans of my generation I have always had a certain fondness for Westerns. I’m not a aficionado or anything but I have liked some Westerns very much. Both movies…High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven…and television offerings…Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Bonanza, Maverick, Lonesome Dove…but, strangely enough, not so much when it came to comic books.

I never warmed much to the western comic book genre…perhaps because many of them (especially Marvel’s characters like the Rawhide Kid and the Two-Gun Kid) just came off as super-hero stories transposed into the 19^th Century and that held no interest to me.

It’s a bit odd to me then that I’m currently buying and reading (and quite enjoying) 3 western-themed comics. The books in question…DC Comics’ Jonah Hex, Dynamite Comics’ Lone Ranger, and Vertigo Comics’ Loveless…are disparate in tone and theme but each is enormously engaging in its own way.

Jonah Hex is not a character I was ever very interested in…though I did give the strange futuristic Hex series a chance…but his new series is a little gem. Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti tell taut, flint-hearted morality tales in which their scarred bounty hunter wades through hunting human prey, getting paid, and occasionally meting out brutal justice (as defined by his own personal and decidedly inflexible code of what’s right and what’s wrong.)

Except for a 3-part origin story, we don’t really get into Hex’s head very much…he is very much like Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” from those classic “spaghetti westerns” from the 60’s…and that’s fine. Aided and abetted by a stellar array of artists (including Jordi Bennett, Luke Ross, and Phil Noto), Gray and Palmiotti are (again with the exception of the origin story) able to tell their gritty, satisfying stories in one issue, which is a delightful change from the so-called decompressed storytelling that too often is the norm at both DC and Marvel these days.

The Lone Ranger is a more straightforward heroic adventure as we follow John Reid, the only survivor of a team of 6 Texas Rangers, in his quest for vengeance, justice, and, most importantly, the building of his friendship and partnership with the enigmatic Tonto, the stern taskmaster who nursed him back to health after he and the other Rangers had been ambushed and he himself had mistakenly left for dead. Unlike Hex, the Ranger makes a decision not to kill, a decision honored…albeit a bit reluctantly…by Tonto, who is very much his partner’s equal in this version of the legendary masked man’s adventures.

Writer Brett Matthews makes the Ranger and Tonto viable for a 21^st Century audience while not compromising the ethos of justice, honor, and righteous vengeance that is the cornerstone of their adventures. He is ably aided with artist Sergio Cariello’s sterling storytelling and art director’s John Cassaday’s evocative covers.

Both Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger are grand comics indeed…even for someone who thinks they don’t like comic book Westerns.

(I’ll cover the challenging, thought-provoking Loveless in a future entry.)

Those Were the Days, My Friend...

A promo video for Justice League: The New Frontier, an adaptation of Darwyn Cooke's delightful DC: The New Frontier series, a charming and heartfelt paean to DC's immortal Silver Age. The DVD will be out in 2008.

Everybody's Talkin' at Me...

Superman…Wonder Woman…Batman…Green Lantern…The Flash…the Justice League of America boasts a membership featuring “the World’s Greatest Heroes”.

With the firepower that the JLA can muster the comic is, to borrow a movie term, most often a big, widescreen action-adventure blockbuster of a comic. And that makes sense…why else gather a powerful team of heavy hitters who are already formidable on their on except to tackle something so overwhelming that even Superman would need partners to watch his back?

Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America team is as powerful a lineup as the team has had: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary, Black Lightning, Red Tornado, Red Arrow (it’s literally and figuratively a colorful lineup), Vixen, and Hawkgirl (with Geo-Force hanging around as an apparently unofficial member and the newly-returned Flash (Wally West) having been invited to join the club.) But instead of feeling like a big action blockbuster (to continue to flog the movie metaphor) Meltzer’s run has felt more like a navel-gazing “indie” movie filled with more talking (and talking and talking and talking) and not as much action as one might have expected from the JLA.

It’s an…um…interesting way to go.

The arc has been more about nostalgia (the fact that the team has two clubhouses…a “Hall of Justice” like from the old cartoons and an orbiting satellite like from the team’s 1970’s days) and relationships (everybody is chummy, which is cool, but I’m still having working on accepting the fact that the teammates call each other by their civilian names even when they’re in the field…hearing them call Superman “Clark” and, especially, calling Batman “Bruce” is still kind of jarring.)

But too often during Meltzer’s run, the team seems to spend a great deal of its time standing around talking (and talking and talking)…the crossover with Justice Society of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes just added more guys to spend a lot of time standing around talking (and talking and talking).

The most current (as of this writing) issue, #11, is a prime example of this. The claustrophobic story features just two members of the team, Red Arrow (an awkward name I think…he had a perfectly workable codename in Arsenal and I’m not sure that changing it to honor “the family business” was necessary) and Vixen (who is the subject of a plot curve ball that Meltzer won’t be around to resolve), trapped under a collapsed building trying to get out. That’s the whole story. Is it a suspenseful character study? Yep. Is there a lot of talking? Oh yeah. Does it work? Yes it does…but it’s not a Justice League story, it’s a Red Arrow story (Roy is shown as the focused strong one, Vixen, who’s been doing the super-hero thing for a while, is presented as panicked, insecure woman who needs to be bolstered up by her partner’s resolve.) Nothing wrong with that, I guess…but as the whole run has been on this same “small screen” vibe it doesn’t have the same impact it would have had if it has been a change of pace from some more expansive JLA adventure.

And leaving after setting up...but not resolving...mysteries and subplots is, to my mind, uncool...but there you are.

Meltzer’s run…bolstered by some sweet artwork art from Ed Benes and, in #11, Gene Ha…has been kinda okay (not great by any means, to be sure, but kinda okay) but I do hope that incoming JLA write Dwayne McDuffie will take the foundation that’s been laid down and craft some adventures worthy of a team with the scope and power of the Justice League of America.

Once Upon a Time...

Once upon a time…which, as all children and people of good heart well know, is when all tales of note begin….there was a war in the lands where fables and fairy tales are true and not just the fanciful imaginings of scribes like the Brothers Grimm. The forces of malevolence prevailed and those who fought on the side of righteousness fled their homelands for life in the mundane world…for life in our world. Using guile and magic and steadfast cunning, the exiles created a community…Fabletown…hidden in plain view…amongst the mortals and thrived while dreaming of the day when they could return to the land of fables and fairytales and overthrow the Adversary (as the ruler of the malevolent armies was known; the Adversary is, surprisingly enough, actually Gepetto, the puppet maker who crafted Pinocchio) and take back the magical lands that are rightfully theirs.

This then is the back story of Fables, the unflaggingly clever, charming, rollicking, and intriguing Vertigo Comics series created and written by Bill Willingham. The conceit of having legendary characters such as Snow White, Little Boy Blue, Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood, Old King Cole, and the Big Bad Wolf interacting in an exile community on Earth could have quickly become gimmicky and cloying in the wrong hands but Willingham deftly avoids every false note and tiresome cliché in his sprawling tales of love, life, adventure, intrigue, politics, and intrigue.

With those Fables who can pass for human living in the city and those who cannot (the Three Little Pigs or the Giants, for example) living, sometimes quite reluctantly, on a secluded farm, the avenues for drama are seemingly endless. And with the breadth of mythology and fable to draw from, the cast of characters are likewise bountiful beyond measure.

Many characters take their turn on the stage but at the heart of the series are the fierce Big Bad Wolf, the son of the majestic and haughty North Wind, who can take human form as Bigby Wolf, the erstwhile Sheriff of Fabletown, and his new bride, Fabletown’s former Deputy Mayor, Snow White. Their prickly…and then passionately romantic…relationship is the emotional foundation of the series. Even having given up their positions in Fabletown for a place out on the farmlands with their children, Snow and Bigby remain important players in the Fables saga.

With the Fables title too small to hold his rampaging ego, one character, the amoral but still charming rogue Jack (almost every Jack in fairytales is and was him) struck out in his own title, Jack of Fables (co-written by Willingham and Matthew Sturges), chronicling his own misadventures (both in the current mundane world as well as his many fantastical experiences in the days before the Fable homelands were conquered the Adversary.)

The Fables experience also flowed through the gorgeous pages of 1,001 Nights of Snowfall, a delightful graphic album featuring Snow White in the role of Scheherazade, the clever woman who survived her murderous husband’s wrath by telling him fascinating tales for 1,001 nights in The Arabian Nights. Charles Vess, Brian Bolland, Jill Thompson, John Bolland, and John Bolton are among the artists who illustrated various chapters in the volume.

Fables (and its spin-offs) are full of love, light, laughter, adventure, and magic. Lots and lots of magic. It’s a wondrous thing indeed.